The giant clothespin

This is a giant piece of what we used to call quad art, a derogatory term we used in college for the wacky "sculptures" that adorned any open space between the buildings on campus.

This clothespin is right across from city hall in Philadelphia. I have no idea why this is here. It's just my opinion, but this isn't art; it's more like a piece of trash from some giant aliens.

I know this is a funny picture

But it had to be done. This is the empty bathroom at the Philadelphia airport. Note that the doors open OUT rather than in, which makes it much easier to get in and out with your rolling carry-on bag. The doors to the women's restrooms at o'hare open in, which makes it very difficult to get in with your luggage. Point Philly, which I think makes the score:

Philly 6; Chicago 3.

Trust

Where do you go when you need a soda early in the morning? The Trust Deli, of course! This was one of two corner stores in my old hood (sadly the other one closed after it's owner became sick). The store is all of 15' x 15', but it has everything you could ever need in a pinch and makes great hoagies! The same family still runs the deli so it was nice to see familiar faces. On the way out, I literally ran into a former colleague and neighbor walking her dog. I was home.

However, I can't give a point to Philly on this one because although the corner stores in my hood in Chicago are not as well-stocked or friendly, they do sell beer. By the six pack. (PA only sells beer by the case in state stores.) so this one is a push.

Lager, light

After a crazy day at work and a packed flight to Philadelphia, I arrived at my friends' house. I had a Pennsylvania beer to carboload. Yeah, that's why. But it hit the spot and I chased it with two tall glasses of the city's finest tap water.

In the background is one of inde's best friends - Sam. Doesn't he look cute? And he even remembered me after two years!! Maybe he just smelled a little inde on my clothes. It doesn't matter because he gave me an enthusiastic Fairmount welcome! Thanks, guys!

Oysters!

This is the oyster sampler - two each of their six best oysters. I managed to sneak one away from my friend who ordered the sampler. It definitely tasted like the ocean. I also learned that the oyster chef in the kitchen will judge you based on how you return your empty shells. I guess if you send them back WITH the mermaid they judge you a fool! My friend very carefully arranged the empty overturned shells. I think this is acceptable.

Mermaid on the half shell

I'm not usually one for oysters, but when a friend from out of town suggests an oyster bar because it is rated in the top ten for oysters in the country, then you go. I think the mermaid is sitting on a crab because the restaurant is really a crab shack, albeit a very upscale "shack."

A new tee pee

I have no idea what this is, but I think it's related to potty training. It amazes me that even potty training devices are sort of cute, minus the sort of spooky faceless toddler form.

East meets (mid)west - briefly

This was pretty cool - on the night that we turned our clocks back an hour, Philadelphia and Chicago were on the same time! Of course the good people in Philadelphia were taking their second trip from 1-2 am, sort of a ground hog day type of thing, so I'm sure they were correcting their errors from the first trip through. In Chicago, however, we were making our first pass through the time, so I think we goofed up some stuff. Slight edge to Philly, but no points awarded.

Piece of cake!

The lighting in this picture isn't great, but this is a cake of a red bustier. Maybe it was made for Madonna? Or maybe she was the inspiration? I don't know, but I'm already planning for my next birthday!

Mooooey Christmas

More cows? Really? And it's not even Thanksgiving yet. One good thing to say about this display, for this store, it's very understated.

Kristkindl market

The elves are hard at work building the Kristkindl market behind the Daley center. In a week or so, this plaza will be filled with booths selling overpriced knick knacks that were made in China to tourists. The tree is pretty cool, but I understand it is smaller than last year's tree. I guess the poor economy is even hitting the Germans. I mean Santa.

Soap!

I don't think I've ever gone to a friend's house and wanted to steal soap from their bathroom. Well, there is a first time for everything. I had dinner at a friend's house yesterday and this was their soap basket. There are at least three bars of soap I wanted to take and I didn't even look beyond the first level!

Flatbread!

I didn't know that Jimmy john's made Flatbread sandwiches. Oh, right, they don't! They just smashed mine in the delivery bag. That's ok, I'm sure it will taste fine.

Hot chocolate!!

This was the post-race snack for a recent race in Chicago. I don't think the picture does it justice. This was an entire tent of chocolate fondue, complete with tasty items to dip like marshmallows, pretzels, apples, bananas, and pound cake. Some lucky runners got super giant marshmallows. Yummy. I don't remember anything like this in Philly. Point Chicago.

Philly 5, Chicago 2. (I gave two points because I love chocolate just that much.)

Too early

When did Halloween signal the start of the Christmas holiday shopping season? This is ridiculous. I protest. I will not engage in any Christmas holiday spirit until after Thanksgiving. Or at least after I throw out the pumpkins we carved for Halloween!

Are you a runner?

This weekend I was not a runner, but instead I was part of the support crew. We got on the train about 7 am along with the rest of the city. I noticed this runner sporting her orange d-tag timing chips from previous races on her backpack. She reminded me of those kids in high school who were alpine skiers. They created a chain out of their lift tickets so you could tell just how many times they had gone skiing and to which exotic places. This is just a long way of saying: the d-tags are disposable timing chips. Dispose of them. Don't display them.

Sunset

I don't think this picture does it justice. This is the sunset last night on my run home from work. The sky looked like it was on fire; it was amazing!

Philly 5; Chicago 1. Way to go Chicago!

Guilty pleasure

I have many guilty pleasures, most of which are not appropriate for the blog. If you know me, you probably know about this one - I like grape soda!! I have not had a grape nehi in ages. And I did not have one today. After complaining about the unhealthy lunch, I could hardly drink a grape soda. Disappointed!

Frost!

I guess the cold weather is here! This is the first frost that I ha e seen in Chicago. I was out at 5:30 this morning to monitor polling locations and I saw this terribly upsetting site. Pretty soon we will have snow!

Philly 5, Chicago 0.

Yummy!

Pizza, beer and baseball. Does it get any better? Oh, yeah, there are a number of other TVs showing Monday night football, hockey and arena football. Too bad they are not showing the Phillies! Go Rangers!

Scary!

Here are the three finished pumpkins. They look good here but were even better in real life! I did the bat but only helped trace the other two. A friend carved the scream and the skull. The scream was rated a more difficult design while the bat was an easier design. The skull was from a different pattern book.

Oh yeah, I also learned:

6. The patterns are rated by level of difficulty.
7. Two candles kick it up a notch if there is not much light.

Pumpkin carving - part 2

This is my pumpkin - the bat. After scooping out the insides and cleaning the seeds to roast, I placed a pattern on my pumpkin and "traced" it. The tracing is really poking the pattern into the shell of the pumpkin with a small plastic toothpick. If you look closely, you can see the pattern.

I learned a few important things yesterday:
1. Make sure you really clean out the insides or else they will make it hard to see the light or could actually burn.
2. If you have small intricate parts of the design (like the bat's eyes), do them first.
3. This is a long and slow process. Be patient or else you might make stray cuts into the pumpkin.
4. Carving the pumpkin the day of Halloween is good because then it is not rotten by the time people come look at it.
5. Your pumpkin might scare the kids away. We didn't have any trick or treaters.

Pumpkin time!

I recently took a trip to an apple farm, but all the apples were picked or had fallen, so the only thing left to pick was a pumpkin. They were only a dollar each if you got ten, so our car got ten. I reminisced about days gone by when you could squeeze a bunch of people I to your car and go to a drive-in movie for $10. Ah, the good old days.

I picked 5 pumpkins and put three of them on my porch. I gave one to a friend and still had 4, but I didn't do anything with them. Until 10/31, when I decided to carve them! I had already invested $5 in the carving tools so I figured I'd be wasting almost $10 if I didn't carve them.

This picture is the pumpkin carving prep. More to follow ...